


Redemption

by NyxNite



Series: Athlin Chronicles [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 08:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13877223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxNite/pseuds/NyxNite
Summary: Mythal and Flemeth remember and maybe they regret.“You should not have given your orb to Corypheus, Dread Wolf…”Far and away, magic stirs. But it hurts."Forget..."





	Redemption

If she took a moment of reflection, Flemeth was quite sure she would find this moment comical. She could not exactly remember how many times she had split herself. Amongst time and space, between worn flesh and revived bone. And yet here she was, for what may be the final time, splitting her essence at the core.

The first wisp that she released from her palm held a green tint. Its magic sung with the cadence of a wolf’s howl, its essence pulsed like the crackling of quiet hearth. A gift from her grandson, to go to potentially another. Where it started, where it belonged. The wisp gently brushed against her cheek, a quiet farewell, and thanks.

“Blood of my blood…” Flemeth whispered, her golden eyes flashing. “To the daughter who tends to be forgotten. Help her sift through it all, help her remember.” The wisp then moved cautiously towards the activated eluvian and passed through carefully.

Again Flemeth called power to her hand, this time the orb pulsed with her own ancient magic. The essence of justice, her godhood she supposed, if she ever was or had such a thing. She held it steady, contemplating it for a moment. Her youngest would not be pleased when she was blessed with such a thing. It was yet another burden on a child who swore she knew more than she did.

A sigh escaped her lips as she pushed this orb through the eluvian. She hadn’t the time for reflection, to look back upon the icon that she had become in the eons that had passed. She wasn’t meant to be this and that. Contentment had found her in the Wilds, even as she heard a sleeping wolf’s howl. And Justice had to be dealt with on larger scales elsewhere, even when the cries of a red headed daughter could be heard through emerald flames repeating every few decades as if looped.

This is what she assumed she was waiting for. She could no longer remember how tired she was. Or exactly when the desire to sleep in the bliss of uthenera had settled upon her shoulders. Was it when, a few centuries pass, she heard her gentle Sylaise cry to Solas and demand rest after meeting a horrible fate as the daughter of the Keeper Zathrian? That death had made the veil unnaturally thin, her cries and sobs had echoed within Flemeth’s mind for almost a season.

Was it when she had gotten careless and the idiots of the chantry had been able to steal a piece of her soul, her grimoire? It had been a diary of sorts, words coded to tell one thing, and then again to tell another. Her therapy in the hands of zealots who knew nothing of their beloved Andraste. So careless.

Or was it when she sent Morrigan away? The look in her eyes had been aching, though Flemeth knew she had not been the best mother to the first child she had carried since before Arlathan. She had forgotten how to be a true mother, raising abandoned children as her own as her flesh and blood died in horrid loops across the realms.

She was cold and protective. And while she had raised many well into adulthood and beyond, only taking their knowledge into her well when it returned to her upon their passing, loving hurt.

And she was so tired of hurting. For a moment she shut her eyes and felt everything for what it was. The wind washed over her as the heat of her magic faded into the eluvian. Her soul, it ached. And yet here was another. One willing to carry her burdens into the next age. Was it wrong? Did she care?

“I knew you would come…” Flemeth said softly lowering her hand and turning towards her visitor.

She hadn’t seen him since her first death and yet he looked as though no time had passed at all. When she had placed herself between Sylaise and Elgar’nan eons ago, the so-called Dread Wolf had been at her daughter’s side. The shade of his essence flared up to protect her from an assault from Elgar’nan’s flames. It had marred the skin of the leader of the Evanuris. An action Elgar’nan called treason, ignoring for too long that Andruil, for the first time, had missed her mark.

Andruil’s arrow sunk into her mother’s chest instead of the rounded belly of the sister that she loathed. And it was there upon the floor of the high council chamber that Mythal died. Her youngest daughter at the time screaming as all the flames around them burned white. Solas pulling Sylaise away as Elgar’nan cursed them both. Her sons too shocked to do anything. Andruil shaking as rage and wrath wrapped around her, her father’s daughter. Ghilan’nain with her eyes downcast, tears streaking down her face.

Had it been their fault? The wrathful should never be given great power, a lesson she had been slow to learn. Elgar’nan had been filled with vengeance and jealousy and for what? Of course, the People found favor in Sylaise who had been banished for daring to have a heat that rivaled her father’s. Sylaise, who gave them her flame and kept herself calm so they could have all the use of it. Sylaise, who sung them songs, and gave them her knowledge without question or reward. Sylaise, who hid them from her sister’s bow and shielded them from her father’s wrath. Sylaise, who refused to brand the People with her magic. Sylaise, who had tried to warn them in her own gentle way.

And here she was once more for a moment lost in a forgotten time, staring at a face she though she would never see again. No time for reflection indeed. Yet she gave him a sad smile. More horrors would come, she was unsure if she could stand it much longer. “You should not have given your orb to Corypheus, Dread Wolf…”

* * *

Solona Amell awoke with a start. Wolf howls still ringing in her ears, the last cry of a dying dragon echoing in her skull. Her blood was rushing a bit too quickly in her veins. The quick breath she let out turned into a cough causing her to sit up too quickly. The world spun.

“ _Fen’harel unvena…_ ” A shade started to whisper in her ear causing her violet eyes to flash emerald.

“No.” She muttered angrily, closing herself off to the fade. Everywhere she went was thin recently, every breath she took called spirits to her. She didn’t want whatever this was. And she also didn’t want to know more than she did now. It hurt.

_“You shouldn’t…” Cole had whispered to her as a castle fell from the sky. She had been crying, a mess of sobs, muffled by the gentle snowfall. Her eyes glowing green like the breach in the sky. Everything was hurting, her head pounding. Something had been broken._

_“I don’t care… just… make it stop…”_

_He had cupped her cheeks gently. “It won’t be like the others, it will come back. It has to come back…” He replied his wide brimmed hat momentarily blocking the snowflakes that tried to reach her face. “It’s you.”_

_“Please just…”_

_“Forget…” He whispered. And then she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what she had been so upset about in the first place._

She brushed beaded sweat from her forehead before noticing that she was holding someone’s attention. “Am I truly that interesting while I sleep Kieran?” Solona asked earning a giggle from her young charge.

“Why are you so tired since we left Skyhold?” Kieran asked as he looked out into the distant forest from the mouth of the cave they currently occupied.

The red head looked around carefully noting that nothing seemed amiss. “I don’t know… It’s probably just old age.” _Or taint. Or trying to keep whispering elven voices away._ Her mind retorted but she pushed those thoughts aside. “Not as old as your mother though…”

Kieran hummed dismissively his eyes moving towards his sleeping mother who was snoring in time next to Barkspawn. The two sat in a companionable silence as the rising sun slowly began to lighten the sky. “You are leaving us today?” He asked suddenly, his dark eyes snapping up to her.

Solona nodded. “I have to head to Soldier’s Peak. But we shall see each other again soon.”

Suddenly the boy moved and had wrapped his arms around Solona’s waist in a tight embrace. “You must be careful…” He whispered quietly burying his face in her tunic.

Solona had immediately tensed up at the sudden contact. But she soon relaxed and gently rubbed circles on Kieran’s back. She smiled and bent her head down to press a kiss upon the child’s crown. “Of course, I’ll be extra careful.”

After a moment he sat up and smiled. He returned her peck with one on the cheek before standing and turning towards his mother. He looked over his shoulder with a light look of contemplation. But he quickly shook it off before speaking. “Good, because you are glowing…” He said with a nod before running over to awaken his mother and demand breakfast.

A quizzical look crossed the warden’s face as she looked down to notice that she was, in fact, not glowing. “Little flirt…” She muttered with fondness and a light laugh as she shifted on her bedroll. Barkspawn lopped over and dropped his head in her lap. Morrigan began moving around their camp to make breakfast. Solona looked wistfully at the sky, the breach forever shading it green. “It’s going to be a good day.”


End file.
